Pardo and the mankind

In a letter ‘’We’re sorry.We humbly apologise’’ (MaltaToday,31 August), Bob Kincaid wrote: “In 1948, Winston Churchill said ‘An iron curtain has descended across the face of Eastern Europe’”.
The modern use of the phrase “iron curtain” to describe the demarcation line of the extension of Soviet influence in countries of Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War was given currency by Josef Goebbels.
In his column “I am back” (MaltaToday, 14 September), Saviour Balzan wrote: “I remember the good days when Malta would always boast of its initiative to save the planet with its visionary Law of the Sea proposal.
It was a 1969 proposal by Maltese diplomat Arvid Pardo at the UN.”
However, it is worth noting that in a speech in 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson of the United States said: ‘’We must ensure that the deep sea-beds and the ocean bottoms are, and remain, the legacy of all human beings...”
And in a key speech before the General Assembly in 1967, Arvid Pardo proposed that the sea-bed and ocean floor beyond the national jurisdiction be reserved exclusively for peaceful purposes and that their resouces be declared... ‘the common heritage of mankind’...” (my emphasis),

John Cachi
Paola

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